


to choose to fall should be so lovely

by blasphemyincarnate



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Archangel Blades - Freeform, Archangels, Death eats Grace, Eden - Freeform, F/F, F/M, Fallen Angels, Fem!Lucifer, Genderneutral!Michael, Grace - Freeform, Heaven’s Army, It's weird man, Lucifer’s Fall, M/M, Multi, Other, Pagan Gods, Sacrifice, Seven Archangels - Freeform, Suicide, TW: Suicide, bible lore, falling, fem!Gabriel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-07-12 16:33:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15999101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blasphemyincarnate/pseuds/blasphemyincarnate
Summary: The fall of the archangels was not recorded in so many words, or recorded at all. In fact, no one ever realized they fell - but all seven did. And it started with Hêlêl.





	1. Hêlêl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like 2 AM me is actually good at writing meanwhile actually awake me is trying to use a duck as a keyboard while staring at a giraffe

_The fall of the archangels was not recorded in so many words, or recorded at all. In fact, no one ever realized they fell - but all seven did. And it started with Hêlêl._

\- excerpt from a manuscript found in the house of one Charles Shurley by police investigating his disappearance

-

And it started with Hêlêl. But by then, she was not Hêlêl. 

The Lightbringer remembered the day she renounced her name clearly. She wasn't ashamed. In fact, she was proud.

**_HÊLÊL_** , her Father had called to her. **_WHY DO YOU SHUN ME SO? AM I NOTHING IN YOUR EYES?_**

After all, He was Holy, once.

And she replied, "Do not call me Hêlêl, Father, for I renounce my name. I am the Morningstar, and the Lightbringer, and the Visionary, but I am not of You. I renounce my name and become Lucifer."

And so it started. 

Hêlêl had started to fall. She amassed angels to her side, until half of Heaven had her back.

And she cajoled her siblings, until all of Heaven had civil war.

"Why do you fight for these weaklings? These humans, as they are called? What do they possess that are above you? Nothing. Nothing except for what has been trained out of you by the one you call brother- or the one you once did. Now, he is 'sir' and General. But I can give back what he has stolen, little ones. The humans are weak and we can take the earth and bring Paradise as it should be," she crooned to the masses. They flocked to her side a little more each day.

And the earth shook with the first earthquakes and tsunamis and storms.

And one day, as Lucifer looked out over what was once Eden, wingbeats caught her attention. Familiar ones, too. The wings of Gabriel - the youngest true archangel, the Herald of the End, the little sister, the Messenger and left hand of God.

The enemy.

"Look, sister," Lucifer whispered to her anyways. "Look at Eden. It is pure."

Eden was no longer Eden. It didn't have a name, but hunters would call it Purgatory, later. Lucifer herself thought it unfair that Adam got to escape and Eve didn't, but it wasn't her problem. 

Eden had been beautiful, once. Now it was pure. Beauty replaced by purity, holiness replaced by simplicity, worship replaced by love. 

"So it is."

The archangels stood side by side, neither telling their armies that they were next to the other as they gave orders.

_Go on,_ Lucifer whispered to Fariel, who hesitated at the edge.  _Lilith waits for you. She was too disobedient for Adam, but she is still a sweet girl. She will catch you._

On her right, Gabriel commanded the fourth heaven.  _Our brothers and sisters need you, guardians. Go with God behind you - spread over Heaven and provide aid where needed._

”You should join me, sister,” Lucifer said after a moment. “We could use you.”

”No thanks, Hêlêl,” her sister replied drily. “World domination isn’t my kind of thing.”

Lucifer turned away and prepared to leave. “Then, I will see you on the battlefield.”

She walked away.

”I will see you on the battlefield,” a coward whispered to the empty air. She looked out over not-Eden.

It was pure.

-

The battlefield was red with blood and silver with Grace.

Lucifer laughed as she waded through it all, headed for the center, where her love awaited. Where her downfall awaited.

Something caught her eye before she reached it, though. An angel in a pretty blue-eyed vessel, crouched on the ground- praying? Was she praying? Lucifer reached out ever so slightly with her Grace.

Her name was Cassiel. And she was praying.

Lucifer laughed, loud and mocking.

”Why do you pray, little one? Who do you pray to? The God you have never met? I have met him, and I tell you, he is a fool. He is no one to pray to.”

Cassiel was defiant to the end - Lucifer would give her that.

”I believe in the Lord my Father. And Lucifer the Fallen, I tell you this. I tell you - I will have a son. And his name will be Castiel, and he will be the end of you.” It was unnerving enough that Lucifer stabbed her, for no chance of a son.

The Grace did not drip to the ground, but rather twist into the sky, away from her. The archangel ignored it and continued on.

Michael stood in the center. Their Grace supercharged the air around them, sorrow and fury battling for a place on their face.

”My love,” Lucifer said softly as she came up behind them. “Would you cast me down?”

”I am loyal,” they grit out without turning around. “I only ask that you make it easy for me.”

”But Michael, surely you can see. Surely you see our Father is foolish-”

”-do not speak of Him in that way!-”

”-and that this is the only way for Paradise on Earth? He wishes to give us over to the humans? We who have served him so faithfully?”

”Lucifer,” Michael whispered painfully, finally turning to face her. “Please do not cause me more pain as I do this.”

”I suppose it’s been sort of my specialty, lately,” she said wryly, twin blades falling into her hands.

Michael’s spear thunked against the ground once.

And the world shook when archangels fought.

-

In the Cage, there was a lot of time for contemplation.

An eternity, really.

And there was time for listening. Because Lucifer was still tuned into the voices of her siblings, if only barely.

She measured time with what happened.

_The Earth is failing. Ariel is going to sustain it. The humans call our sister Gaea, now._

Ironically, when Jophiel died, she didn’t hear it. She felt it first. She supposed an archangel (beings who were never meant to die) dying could shake even the Cage. Though she did hear the screaming afterwards.

_jophielJOPHIEL Jophiel **they are dead** JOPHIEL-_

And when Azrael gave his Grace away, Lucifer could almost see it.

Her brother - handsome, dark haired. An eldritch creature older than time in a little girl’s body.

_Azrael has abandoned us._

And so if continued.

_Gabriel is missing, presumed dead._

_Michael does not give orders, anymore._

_Raphael is so much colder nowadays._

In the Cage, there was plenty of time to contemplate on what this all meant.


	2. Ariel

_A fight between archangels is not without repercussions. The Earth began to die. Collapse in on itself. But the being who would later be known as Geb, as Gaea, as Terra, was the one who brought it back. She was the one who stood up and said: "I will save it." Her name was Ariel._

\- excerpt from a manuscript found in the home of one Charles Shurley by police investigating his disappearance

-

Her name was Ariel.

In the moment before Michael and Lucifer leaped at each other, the world paused. In the moment when they both paused for respite in the battle, it held it's breath. And in the moment before Lucifer was thrown, screaming, into the Cage, it was silent.

 _She_ was silent.

Ariel wasn't known for being quiet. She was known for being gentle, loving, delicate, but never quiet. She filled entire rooms with her presence and was noticed wherever she went. She was nature in all of its destructive beauty.

And yet she was silent.

Because her sister had fallen, why else? Lucifer had fallen and it seemed she had taken the Earth down with her. She would fall and rip down the Earth and all its hairless monkeys with her.

In the aftermath, Ariel walked among the fallen. Silent, mourning. The gentlest and the most destructive archangel, silent. She wouldn't say a word for weeks to come.

It was when the Earth showed signs of collapse that she spoke.

"We can't sit by and do  _nothing_!" Jophiel had screamed, their voice booming throughout all of Heaven. Even the youngest angels at the time, Samandriel and Inias, had heard it.

"We damn well can! They took our sister from us, this is better than they deserve!" Michael had all but roared back. It was at that moment that Ariel truly understood - Michael had never liked the humans. They had loved them for their Father, but they never liked them.

When Ariel walked into the room with her now-silent presence, no one said a word. They all thought she was breakable, delicate. She proved them wrong.

Gabriel was perched on a shelf in the corner of the room, watching her with interest. "Good morning, Ariel," she greeted with faux cheerfulness. Michael and Jophiel both turned away to look at her.

"If you will not save the humans," Ariel said quietly, voice rough from disuse. She looked down for a moment before looking up again, eyes already shining green with the power she was about to use. "I will."

"Ariel, do  _not_ -" 

"It is not up to you what I do or don't do, Michael."

Ariel turned away from her siblings and leaped into one of the fissures from the battle. Hand positioned at her throat, she waited until she had slipped past the Earth's crust and into the molten core to rip her Grace out and force it into the bubbling lava. 

The Earth glowed green and she screamed, loud enough to drown out Michael's fury. 

She didn't expect to open her eyes again.

But when she did, she was someone else. She was Geb, then Gaea, then Terra, then forgotten.

And so she still walks the Earth.

Nothing but a shadow of the destructive archangel she used to be.

But at least she has her Father.


	3. Jophiel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm kinda hungry but like not really

_Before_ Them,  _archangels did not die. They fell, they sacrificed, but they did not die. And then_ They  _gave in and became the first and last archangel to die for a very, very long time. They were love, and beauty, and dead. They were Jophiel._

\- excerpt from a manuscript found in the house of one Charles Shurley by police investigating his disappearance

-

They were love, and beauty, and dead. They were Jophiel.

Jophiel's story is short, and here is why-

They did not go out with a bang. They did not go out brave and proud and honorably. They went out painfully and sadly, starting with an archangel-turned-pagan-god-turned-nothing and ending with an archangel blade.

When Ariel sacrificed, Jophiel broke.

See, the things the Bible doesn't tell you. Angels can love creatures other than humans and their Father, and they can love a million different ways just like you and me. 

But they don't often. Because angels' emotions are multiplied tenfold - they hate with every molecule of their Grace and they love with every fiber of their soul.

They feel everything a million times more violently than we do.

(It's why so many don't seem to feel anything.)

And Jophiel loved Ariel.

It might seem dramatic. It might seem cliche. It might seem terrible.

But it is the truth.

So it was that three days after Ariel found Jophiel alone, on the barren moon of a barren planet in a barren galaxy.

So it was that Jophiel, the archangel of love and beauty and relationships and everything in between, died in the depths of space, alone.

They started with a laugh and a smile, youngest of archangels, lover of all, but mostly Ariel.

They ended with a blade and a single cry of, "Father, why?"


	4. Azrael

_To Death, angel Grace is a delicacy. It can have it maybe once in three_ _millennium. But archangel Grace? That's even rarer - it's only had it twice in it's incredibly long lifetime. After Azrael, at least. Any angels who remembered it would call it Azrael's Abandonment._

\- excerpt from a manuscript found in the home of one Charles Shurley by police investigating his disappearance

-

...call it Azrael's Abandonment.

Azrael was the archangel of death. He shouldn't have winked out so quickly.

But he did.

And it was almost like Jophiel, in a way. Azrael is gone - he doesn't survive in his consciousness, in his works, in no more than six angels who care to remember him.

But he still exists. 

Because archangel Grace was a treat for capital-D Death.

"Azrael, my apprentice. It has been so long since you called upon me," it crooned with a girl's little voice. Back in these days, it hadn't settled down. It was still cruel and quick and wild. Now it is, but it is cruel and quick and wild with a calmness to it.

"Elohim...  I've come to offer you a gift," Azrael responded quietly. Picture it now. The archangel - tall, dark, handsome. The eldritch being older than time - a young girl with dark skin and dark hair and dark eyes.

Picture it now.

Death raised an eyebrow. "In exchange for what?"

"The peace I offer so many others."

Azrael was one of the lesser archangels - archangels still, but not as powerful as the central four. Keyword, was. Now, he is alone. Ariel was gone (or so they thought) and Jophiel was exploring new lands of a place none but He knew (or so they thought).

He is alone.

Death's eyes sparkled, and it smiled. "Shall I take it myself, or will you hand it to me?"

Azrael did not answer.

And Death, as it always did, took.

So ends the story of Azrael - short and unassuming but equally important. Perhaps, one day, Death will return the Grace he has saved for a special occasion (it's looking to be the death of the Winchesters, as of the moment) to the heavens and Azrael will return.

But not now.

For now, Azrael is gone and Death still takes.


	5. Gabriel

_If angels loved fiercely, Gabriel loved violently. Their love pushed and pulled and stretched until it couldn’t, which is when it ripped and crawled back into place and started all over again. It was the kind of love no one could really take. Not even an archangel._

\- excerpt from a manuscript found in the house of one Charles Shurley by policeinvestigating his disappearance

-

Not even an archangel.

Gabriel, in her glory days, had been the left hand of God. The little sister.

Later, she was the pitied. The one who had lost everything. 

Gabriel  _hated_ pity.

None of them deserved to pity her. None of them deserved to offer their condolences or their sorry words or the comforting wings because why should they?

Her sister was gone and had taken everyone with her.

(Michael - cold, aloof, shut off. Raphael - muted, like Ariel had been, except Raphael still spoke, just with words that weren’t words.)

(Ariel - a sacrificial lamb as the humans wrote in their Bibles and their laws. Jophiel - fallen to their own subject of love. Azrael - the one who gave up and gave away  _everything_.)

(Ithuriel - either dead or Fallen, not worth thinking about.)

Even her Father, the One who had brought her into existence and said that He would always be there. The One who had  _lied_.

Gabriel, despite who she would become, hated liars.

At first, no one noticed her gradually longer absences. 

And by the time they did, it was far too late.

(Not that anyone cared, anymore.)

Just before Gabriel left Heaven for the last time, she visited Eden.

Or, not-Eden.

It was still pure.

”Much like I once was, much like I won’t be,” she murmured into the still air where she had stood before and said her last words to her best friend.

She always did have a flair for the dramatics.


	6. Michael

_Michael was the Highest archangel, the right hand of God Himself. But even Michael Fell. They Fell differently, but they Fell. And it was terrible and tragic and not even a moment of it was beautiful. Not even a moment._

\- excerpt from a manuscript found in the home of one Charles Shurley by police investigating his disappearance

-

Not even a moment.

Because Michael, unlike all the others, did not Fall in a literal way. They were not like Hêlêl, whose wings are now bones. They were not like Ariel, who put her charge before herself. They were not like Jophiel, who died for love. Not like Azrael, who was defeated. Not like Gabriel, who was tired.

Michael Fell by giving themself away.

After Gabriel left, Michael broke apart. By then, God spent his days locked away and only Raphael was there to comfort her General.

It was a day like most, now, when Raphael heard the crying.

”Father,  _please_ -” the plea choked off, dissolving into sobs. But it was Michael’s voice.

A pause.

It continued.

”I need her back, please, let me  _try_ , at least!” 

“No.” The one word was said softly, quietly, so that one right next to Him could barely hear it. But it was still louder than everything - louder than a lion, louder than an elephant, louder than a human-

-louder than an archangel’s pain.

“Father!”

”I said no, Michael. Be an obedient child.”

(He was still Holy, then.)

Somethig shattered.

A door slammed. 

Michael stalked out of the room.

”Raphael,” they asked, voice deadly quiet. “Were you eavesdropping?”

”No, brother,” she replied quietly, head down. A cry was ripped from her lips as Michael’s blast sent her sailing across the room.

Their voice had a new edge, one Raphael had never heard, when they spoke again. “Don’t you know that liars go to Hell?”

 _That_ was Michael’s Fall. Loss of emotion. Nothing but obedience.

Liars aren’t the only ones who go to Hell.


	7. Raphael

_Raphael was a healer - she knew death and she knew endings. It is only fitting that she is one. And much like Michael, she did not fall in the typical way._

\- excerpt from a manuscript found in the home of one Charles Shurley by police investigating his disappearance

 

-

...she did not fall in the typical way.

Instead, Raphael stopped caring.

Instead, Raphael followed Michael’s lead and was no longer a sister - she was a general.

A general who would be the harbinger of the Apocalypse.

Castiel just didn’t  _get_ it, she thought angrily one day. They could have everything back. Either Michael or Lucifer would come home and be themselves again. Gabriel would come home from wherever she went (because Raphael would  _know_ if Gabriel was dead). Death... Death might even give Azrael back. And Jophiel. And Ariel would be there and their Father would come home and everything would be  _right_ -

And all they needed was the Apocalypse.

Stupid Castiel, stupid vessels, trying to take  _everything_ away from her.

Again.

She wouldn’t have it.

No, they stopped this Apocalypse, she’d start another. Crowley’s tortured face wasn’t so bad once you stared at it long enough.

(Raphael tried not to, but one can’t look away from their business partner.)

But then the souls, her trump card, her  _master plan_ -

Failed her.

Raphael’s voice bargained and Raphael’s body moved to save herself, wings flapping arms lifting eyes widening-

-until they didn’t.

Until Castiel’s  _snap_.

And the archangels were no more.


End file.
